Background to Roxyverse

The Background to the Roxyverse …

The ‘Seven Slayers’ storyline.

If you’re not playing with the original Sunnydale Scooby Gang, there has to be a rationale behind the presence of a Slayer elsewhere. I saw the ‘Nocturnum’ rationale, which assumes Faith’s heart having stopped briefly during her coma, and ran with it. The timing doesn’t fit with my campaign, however; I wanted Roxy to be a new Slayer. I therefore took the events in the ‘Nocturnum’ setting as having occurred in my game world, but assumed that their Slayer, Kat, had suffered a similar temporary death experience. Later events in their storyline would have provided a different opportunity, but my world was already running by then. I incorporated their storyline into mine in an entirely different fashion (see fic ‘Temple of Love’).

I took some scenarios from the published Eden Studios material, but also wanted to fit the events of Buffy Season 7 into my game. I began to wonder how the First Evil would react to a world with multiple Slayers; not wildly enthusiastic, was my guess. Buffy, Faith, Kat, and now Roxy. Suppose there were even more?

I had created a character many years ago, 1983 IIRC, long before Buffy was even a spark in Joss Whedon’s mind, as part of a different game environment. A girl who was the descendant of a 17^th-century were-lynx and had powers resembling those of a Slayer, and who fought vampires while training as a dentist. I recreated her in the BtVS RPG system, wrote a back story to explain how she had been a Slayer in the 1980s yet was still alive today, and found that it was a very dark back story indeed. So Sally Phantom entered the Roxyverse, bringing plot hooks and enemies with her.

I liked the ‘Chicas’ in the Core Rulebook, and was intrigued by the history of Gabby Blades. However I played with it a bit. I worked the war between France and Mexico into my version, made her background more tragic, and then decided to incorporate her into the multiple Slayers storyline. Her two companions started to take shape as I wrote.

Teresa is mainly based on ‘Commandante Teresa’ in ‘Sharpe’. I made my version half Spanish and half Portuguese just in case I made any geographical or linguistic slips in the back story. And, of course, made her a vampire who had been a Slayer in life. The plot was thickening.

Two vampire former Slayers who both had good reason to hate the French. A third? The 13^th-century ‘Sicilian Vespers’ gave me the idea for an older companion, and I had Rosa. The Chicas, now renamed ‘Las tres Cazadoras Vampir’, were complete.

Slayers turned into vampires? How much of the Slayer would remain in them? There isn’t much in canon to guide me. I decided that they would retain much of their abilities, and even some of their motivation; but the demon would seek an outlet for its evil and blood-lust, and would take every advantage of the hatred of the French that the girls had had in life. Murder, even massacre, and the former Slayers would believe all the time that they were doing good. The French would, in their eyes, be reclassified as Evil.

The French would, of course, beg to differ on that point, and would seek to rid the world of the three vampires. Which led me to the creation of Dominique Reynard.

By now I was diverging quite a lot from the original storyline laid out in the published scenarios. This was ideal, as then I could allow the players to read the rulebooks without too much fear of them encountering spoilers. A souled vampire sidekick or two, a prophecy, a revised version of the First Evil’s speech from ‘Conversations with Dead People’, a quest, a series of trials to be undergone, a Bot, songs for a musical episode, and we were in business.

Once the players had created their characters, they were ready to enter the chosen setting. Whitby. I haven’t been there for years, but there’s a lot of material about it on the net, and it seemed just so right.

Whitby.

Sleepy seaside town, famous for the best fish and chips in the world, and for being Dracula’s port of arrival in England. Hang-out of Goths and weirdoes. Vampires and demons hang out there because they blend right in.

Home of Roxanne Quinn, new Slayer, and her watcher Jocasta McStay.

DeathWarmedUp

The night-club “Death Warmed Up”, which is mentioned in the Watcher’s Tales as the setting for some of the adventures, is not quite the same in real life. It is a members-only Alternative Rock night at the Rifle Club, West Cliff, Whitby. Under-18 memberships are available, making it a valid hang-out for the Roxettes in theory, but it isn’t frequent enough for my needs as a game setting. So I changed it for purposes of the plot, making it two nights a week, and treating it as resembling Sunnydale’s “Bronze” but with more Goth and Metal music. I changed the name slightly just to stop the spellchecker from complaining every time I typed it.

I’ve never been in it myself, but neither have the players, so they couldn’t criticise my description. If you are running a BtVS RPG game you may find that similar modifications to real-life settings work for you too.

Previously on Roxanne the Vampire Slayer …

The history of events in the Roxyverse before we join it for Season One:

800 AD. Sorcerers under the command of Caliph Haroun al-Rashid imprisoned the Djinn, a mighty and dangerous spirit, in a dimensional prison in the shape of a lamp. Thus imprisoned the Djinn could be forced to grant wishes, but it always sought to twist the wish to the misfortune of the master of the lamp.

1258 AD. With the Mongols under Hulagu Khan at the gates of Baghdad, the Vizier sought to compel the Djinn to destroy the invaders. Fearing the Djinn more than the Mongols, the Caliph interrupted the spell. The Mongols broke into the city before the Vizier could convince the Caliph to let him continue. The secret of the Djinn was forgotten, and the lamp carried off by looters who used it only to light their tents. However the bonds that held the Djinn had been weakened ….

1274 AD. Rosa di Corleone, Slayer in the Kingdom of Sicily, was bitten by a Norman vampire and Sired. She rose as a vampire of exceptional power.

1282 AD. Rosa led the Sicilians in the uprising against their Norman overlords known as the ‘Sicilian Vespers’. Once Sicily was freed she left, vowing to fight the French for all eternity.

1582 AD, 5 October. Jack Robson was born in Northumberland. In other news, the Gregorian calendar was introduced in some Catholic countries of Europe, where the 4^th of October was followed by the 15^th October and there was no such date as 5^th October 1582.

1607 AD. Jack Robson left Britain to escape the suppression of the Reivers, and became a mercenary in Europe.

1611 AD. Jack Robson was Turned by a vampire in Hungary.

1630 AD, 10 June. Total Solar eclipse in France, where Jack Robson was wreaking havoc as a soulless vampire.

1702 AD. Jack Robson met up with Rosa during the War of the Spanish Succession and started going out with her.

1810 AD. Teresa dos Santos y Gutierrez, Slayer in Spain, left her calling as a Slayer to fight against the invading French. She wreaked havoc as a guerrilla fighter against their lines of communications, killing hundreds with her superhuman strength and speed. The Council of Watchers decreed her to be a Rogue.

1811 AD. Desperate to get rid of Teresa, the French recruited the most powerful of vampires, Count Dracula, to remove her. Dracula Sired Teresa, but she remained free of his control and continued to fight the French with even greater ferocity.

1815 AD. At the Congress of Vienna, following the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Teresa met Rosa. They teamed up to continue their eternal fight against the French.

1865 AD. The French in Mexico attacked the village of Gabriella del Espadon, the Slayer. Fastest gun in all Mexico. She surrendered when a French officer put a gun to the head of her Watcher. The French killed her Watcher anyway, killed Gabriella’s parents, beat her with rifle butts, raped her, and shot her twice in the stomach. Dying, she still attempted to escape and killed a French officer in the attempt, but was caught and would have been killed but for the intervention of Rosa and Teresa.

However she was too badly injured to survive. Teresa offered her a choice; die human, or be Sired and continue to fight the French. Gabriella chose vampirism.

1880 AD. William the Bloody Awful Poet was Turned by Drusilla in London.

1988 AD. The Slayer, Sally Phantom, fought a Chinese Triad hit man, and was shot multiple times with a machine pistol. She fell from a cliff, riddled with bullets, and was thought to be dead. Another Slayer was Called. But Sally lived.

1991 AD. An Iraqi Kurd found the lamp. Remembering childhood tales, he made an idle wish; to be able to escape Iraq and open a profitable Kebab shop in the West. Soon afterwards he indeed managed to flee Iraq, made his way to England, was granted asylum, and opened a Kebab shop in Whitby. It prospered; the kebabs were good, and he never had to purchase meat. The kebab meat miraculously replenished itself ….

1996 AD. Buffy Summers was Called as the Slayer in Los Angeles.

1997 AD. The lamp was found by an Arab, who sold it to the Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad. It lay there untouched for years. However the power of the Djinn was gradually growing as the magical kebabs were consumed.

Buffy Summers moved to Sunnydale, where she was drowned by The Master. She died for half a minute, and a new Slayer was called; but Buffy was revived by CPR. There were now 3 Slayers, although the Watchers’ Council did not know that Sally survived and believed there to be only 2.

1998 AD. Kendra, the third Slayer, was killed by Drusilla and Faith was Called.

1999 AD. Buffy stabbed Faith, whose heart stopped shortly after she was taken to hospital. Her heart was restarted, and she lived, although she spent 8 months in a coma, but a new Slayer was Called and now there were four.

2002 AD. The fourth Slayer, Kat, took an overdose of sleeping pills and died briefly before being resuscitated. Roxanne Quinn found she had new superhuman abilities, and that she was the Slayer. Jocasta McStay became her Watcher.

The story picks up at this point ….

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